"Anybody care to tell me what's happening?" he asked, walking out into the living area of his quarters aboard the New Sierra Platform. The fact Joseph Marcum looked pale and genuinely scared chilled Pitt to his core. Back when he had been Fleet Admiral Marcum, Pitt had never seen the man so much as raise an eyebrow even when staring down a dozen Phage Super Alphas.

"We’re being evacuated," Marcum said. "President Stark pulled the trigger on one of our emergency contingency plans to get key members of the civilian and military leadership away from the capital."

"That's only in the event that there's a credible…" Pitt trailed off as he saw the grim look on his friend's face.

"Credible threat of invasion, coup, or other catastrophe that could render the government incapable of fulfilling its duties," Admiral Wright said, finishing the line from the Fed charter. "We received word just an hour ago that a sizable Alliance force made up of their most modern warship was coming to the DeLonges System. They've been moving their ships into place in small numbers and using lesser-traveled warp lanes to avoid detection, but one of my Prowlers stumbled across them. We leaned hard on Admiral Xiao, and he confirmed that, given the movements we observed, the target would almost certainly be New Sierra."

"Admiral Xiao was that Alliance officer the CIS trapped and captured?" Pitt asked.

"That's right," she confirmed. "He's been cooperating for the most part, but his knowledge was far more limited than we were led to believe. Grabbing him probably wasn't worth the trouble it caused us to do it."

"The fact this force is moving on our capital right after I sent the Jericho and half the defense force away to assist at Exeter Base isn't a coincidence," Pitt said.

"Not likely," Marcum agreed. "The president doesn't think so, either. We're not sure if New Sierra is the target or not, but it seems the most likely. It also confirms what we already suspected about the number of spies within our own forces."

"There's probably not as many as it seems, but they're in places where they can do the most damage," Perez said, walking out of the bedroom. "You have a go-bag, Admiral?"

"Of course," Pitt said.

"You have a kill-switch for your office?"

"For my personal files, which I have copies of on a local drive here," Pitt said. "Everything else is controlled on the main servers."

"That'll have to do," Perez said. "Grab your shit, and let's go."

Pitt grabbed his bag, a courier pack with all his classified files, and a sidearm from one of the wall lockers. His heart beat with both fear and excitement as he realized the magnitude of what was happening. The CENTCOM Chief of Staff was being smuggled out of his HQ in the dead of night because leadership thought there was a decent chance the damn capital was about to be invaded. This was a bold, decisive move by the Alliance if true. No fucking around with trying to invade from the edges…fly right to the heart of the Federation and drive a stake through it.